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Epic to Sponsor Unreal University

Posted by simoniker on from the bachelors-degree-in-fraggin' dept.

PepsiProgrammer writes "Epic and Nvidia are teaming up to create the first annual Unreal University, a two-day tutorial covering techniques for creating mods for the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine. It'll be held at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, on November 8th and 9th, 2003." With this event, the million-dollar Make Something Unreal contest, and the free Unreal Technology video tutorials, looks like Epic is pushing their engine heavily as weapon of choice for FPS modders.

8 of 12 comments (clear)

  1. I think it works by Dreadlord · · Score: 3, Insightful

    UT2K3 was released last year, I got a copy back then, the game was fun to play for a while, then it became a bit boring, so I started to look for mods, and I found some interesting mods, but none kept me playing for a long time.
    Later, when Epic started to promote the UT2K3 engine for mods (Something Unreal contest, releasing the engine for free ...) I noticed a increased number of mods, I also noticed that the quality got higher, actually, UT2K3 is back to life for me now, one of my favorite mods is FaceOff UT2003, it has nothing to do with UT2K3 fancy SiFi setting, it's a real world combat game, something like TacOps or CS.
    Another great mod is Deathball (created by TeamVortex who made the greatest UT mod ever, Operation Napali), this mod improves UT2K3's Bombing Run mode.
    So I guess that Epic's new strategy along with the fact that UT2K3 is pretty new (not like the aged HL engine) makes UT2K3 a heaven for modders.

    --
    The IT section color scheme sucks.
  2. university by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "When I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University."
    --Ralph Wiggum

  3. Re:FP by windex82 · · Score: 1

    Why was this modded troll, just because he menotioned getting first post and that this is really a boring article?

    Im also tired of the sorry state of FPSs, Raven Shield is the best one if played latly, then it turned in to every other FPS. Before the first patch the game actually took some skill to sneak around SLOWLY and put your shot in a guy, then they "patched" it to "make it better" and all they did was turn it into a run and gun FPS like every other first person POS.

    I'm glad theres going to be a school to teach such things, i hope its focus is more on story design then the technical aspects though. Half-Life was one of the best FPS for one reason (IMO) the story is still the best of all the FPSs. The add ons werent great but they were decent.

  4. how about some documentation? by ceej · · Score: 1

    I think if Epic were really serious about promoting modding their engine, they'd release some documentation for it. The only useful documentation I could find is the Unreal Wiki, provided by frustrated mod developers. That plus the source scripts for the UT2003 games is enough to get started, but only for the dedicated. A few focused and annotated source examples would go a long way, and some reference documentation would be gold. Why not put more content on the UDN technical wiki that isn't for engine licensees only?

    1. Re:how about some documentation? by inkless1 · · Score: 1

      Well, for one thing - the Unreal Wiki is huge and probably provides more documentation for modding Unreal than any other engine. It's more dedicated than frustrated modders.

      And, there's a fervent community of modders willing to help around a lot of different forums.

      And of course, there's the 3DBuzz tutorials and classes.

      Not saying that more documentation wouldn't be good, but the Unreal Engine has a lot of grass roots documentation and help to get people started.

    2. Re:how about some documentation? by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 1

      Every document that does not contain native engine information is available on the UDN.
      Mod creators don't need access to the native engine documentation anyway.

  5. I was just going to post about this! by neostorm · · Score: 1

    Thanks for pointing out that site. I've been looking for more active community sites lately. Generally I find with any particular gaming scene the users of that particular game will flock to one site or another. However I have yet to find a location that's really heavy in UnrealEd modders traffic. I could use a good forum where I can talk to other designers and get my questions answered (and hopefully help out other people as well).
    If you have any such forum I would greatly appreciate a heads up. I used to read PlanetUnreal's Editing forum but that place is a total joke for activity.

    Also, if Wiki doesn't whett your appetite for UnrealEd Documentation, check out the Unreal Developers Network. There's no community activity, but I find it's the most technical assistance for using the editor around.
    If you know of any better, by all means share!

    Happy modding!

    1. Re:I was just going to post about this! by neostorm · · Score: 1

      "Also, if Wiki doesn't whett your appetite for UnrealEd Documentation, check out the Unreal Developers Network...."

      Sorry, obviously I don't read all that carefully!